I love this thing. A funk machine. Very dirty–sounds like something straight off a Memphis rap mixtape from the 90s. Drum and Bass and Jungle sounds too. Sometimes I sequence my Bass Station 2 with it and the combo is just house rocking gutter magic.
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I don’t have one myself, but if I found one in good shape for a decent price I would. I played with one a bit back in the 90s. I think it sounds great… That Bad Gear episode might have made me like it even more 
I wonder if there’s a decent DR-202 sample pack out there
It was my first drum machine. I wish I still had it.
I don’t think a sample pack would quite cut it. A lot of the magic comes from the weird/over the top effects and eq, the real-time tweaks that can be recorded to sequences, the huge variety of rolls, and the “rhythm templates” that can be applied to any beat.
They used to be around $100-150 a couple years ago.
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I’ve got one and it’s deffo got a sound of irs own, in a good way
I think of Umfang as the Jeff Mills of the 202. As far as I know it’s been her main hardware drum machine on all her records.
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JAN LINTON used it on everything, including the one with Barbieri out of Porcupine Tree. Its on Youtube, “Sequential Sakura”- you can spot the Boss DR202 drums a mile off… Some Berlin snobs might turn their nose up at it, but its got its own charm…and it rocks here
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I have one in a cupboard with bad battery leak - the previous owner left a load of AAs in there. I have a replacement for the chip most damaged (DRAM) so hopefully a swap and some fancy wirin’ will fix it.
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Used to have one. Was interesting as an external sequencer too.
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I just got one and am very keen to hear how others are using it.
Just came across this dope DR-202 beat tape. Some good inspiration.
@new_drugs maybe you need another one. 
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Ha! I have been thinking I should pick one of these up again ever since you posted yours. I do keep my eye on Craigslist in case one pops up cheap but they are rare or people want too much for them. I think I sold mine for $40 or something. Please post anything you come up with on it.
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I always thought about getting one to accompany my SP-202 and SP-808.
But my motivation was really just collecting and not actually using. I did manage to get some cool drum sounds out of the SP-808. I have one beat in the SP-202 but I can’t find a card reader that works with my PC to back up the samples so I can create a new project, so it just sits on the shelf collecting dust and the SP-808 sits in the closet in it’s bag. Think about selling them all the time, but I hate selling gear.
EDIT: Looks like they’re going for about 20,000 on Mericari.
Less than what I paid at Hard Off, but it’s in pretty good condition with the manual and adapter, and came with a three-month warranty, which is a bit of peace of mind for something this old.
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Will do!
In the meantime, I love coming across old videos like this. Fun beatmaking in action. Paging @Sleepynumb 
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This might be the best that I’ve heard a DR-202 sound. Looks like that tape is almost 10 years old too. I think that @Poetic-Noise does DR-202 things, or at least he used to. He’d probably think that this is dope too. Thanks for sharing, man.
Gotta wonder if this guy is just recording with a room mic? I can’t really say that it sounds like it’s going into a mixer but I do see monitors and the other tape you posted above definitely sounds unavoidably like a DR-202 to where you can’t even pretend that it’s something else but this one seems to have an ambience to the recording that’s making it smack a little above it’s weight class.
It’s incredible that there’s random cool stuff out there which youtube makes so damn hard to find because they only want you to see content that makes them money. Sad thing but I just don’t spend enough time on youtube to really dig beyond a certain depth and makes you wish that they had a more unbiased algorithm.
Hope to hear what you do with it. Probably sounds good with a little processing too.
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Yeah, it can definitely sound good and probably more versatile than one would think. This one is a nice example of someone doing something very not its usual thing.
And this:
I’m not much into 80s synthwave, but this guy is rocking it.
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Yoooo! thanks for the shout-out.
This video you posted doesn’t sound it was recorded with a room mic. Besides the FX from the SP404, that pretty much how it sounds…like or not…
The DR-202 was my first box back in 2002. It broke down in the mid 2000s & I got a new one in 2022 & in 2023 I found a 3 beat tapes I thought was lost forever, I recorded with it back in like 2003 (that’s a lot of 2’s).
Here a some stuff I remade of the tape beats. Since I didn’t have the MIDI data for most of them I had to recreate them on the Force acting as the seq & recorder & FX box…Oh & can’t forget the I found out how to control the DR filter (which is one of the best things about it) with the Force crossfader - it doesn’t send normal CC#, you gotta mess with nerdy-ass Hex to Dec & NRPN, It took me a while to get it, but it was so worth it as it make it sound like a brand new synth.
The intro is the sample from the tape with all it’s sexy hiss & tape compression. followed by the recreate version with the DR synth on 3 tracks (Keep in mind you can only play 1 bass patch per pattern, but you can overdub different parts at different octaves) using it’s own filter via the Crossfader. While the sample from the tape veersion is using the Force filter & crossfader:
Here’s the first beat I made when I got the DR202 again in 2022:
Here’s the same beat made with Force/MPC built-in synths:
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I have the 880. Does it have the same sounds? The 880 is a beast. I use it a lot to add an extra groove to a drum machine and I also fire it up and practice bass with it.
Its incredibly cool for fusion and ethnic grooves that can be hard to program to really feel good.
You would to check both of their manuals sample list sections. I know they will have a bunch of Roland sounds, but I doubt they will sound the same since the DR202 is so dirty & nasty. It can sound like home cassette from the 80s without a Lofi FX. These samples and, or sound demos shouldn’t hard to find.